Steel City, Best for Wear
My new home is a city engulfed in history, specifically the industrial brand. The urban backdrop in Pittsburgh today is either a lasting remnant of this specific past (particularly areas like the Strip, Braddock, and Homestead) or a facade that has covered up or replaced the old. Allow me to give a brief history lesson (some info from about.com).
Around the time of the War of 1812, coal was discovered here, and thanks to that discovery and the presence of its three rivers, Pittsburgh was thrust into the world of manufacturing. By 1847, engineer John Roebling had invented a wire cable that would hold up the first cable suspension bridge. During the Civil War, iron from Pittsburgh was used to supply the Union army for the production of armor plates, warships, and other materials. Then, in 1873, Andrew Carnegie opened his first steel mill--icing the cake of an industry that flourished for 100 years, but has since faded away into a notch in Pittsburgh's timeline, as landmarks rather than production sites, and the origin of a stereotype that has not yet died (which is of course the stereotype that Pittsburgh is still a filthy, polluted Steel City--not so!)
In honor of Pittsburgh's industrial past, the gray and overcast skies of Pittsburgh's cold months, and to expound upon my boundless love of shoes, here are some smooth metallics for fall or winter to envelop your feet with a wealth of style.
Taking cues from the industrial era, I've also gathered up some great work boots that are making a comeback (yes indeed, fashionable sir with the tongs [above])--in distressed leathers and combat boot styles--both for women and men.
A closing thought. Pittsburgh is in a persistent state of cleaning up its tarnished image as a decrepit steel town by reviving rundown, half-empty neighborhoods and turning previous steel factory sites into luxury apartments and shopping centers; which some might view as a contrast to the 'social deterioration' of graffiti, stencils, and stickers scattered across the old and new of the cityscape--on railroad bridges and retired rail cars, the walls of dated shipping warehouses, shiny new street signs, and on concrete walls of hiking trails. I see the street activity as bridging a gap between the 1800s and now, and between the modern changes and their own. Artists aren't recreating or destroying, but simply adjusting random spots in the varied environments, these surfaces which hail from many eras and exist at once. When it comes down to it, street art is evidence of connection to the environment, the location, the place.
More another day!
